AMN / WEB DESK
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said the current world is much more chaotic, much less predictable than during the Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the United States. He said in a wide-ranging press conference held yesterday that the Cold War was between two opposing blocs where there were clear rules and mechanism to prevent conflict. He opined, it never became hot because there was a certain level of predictability.
As he starts his second term as UN Secretary-General, Guterres said that the world is worse in many ways than it was five years ago because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and geopolitical tensions that have sparked conflicts everywhere.
Regarding Ukraine crisis, Guterres said there should not be any military intervention. The UN chief spoke after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met in Geneva on the crisis over Ukraine which has seen Moscow deploy tens of thousands of troops on its border and Western nations sending military hardware to Kyiv.
Expectations were low for a breakthrough and there was none, but the top US and Russian diplomats agreed to meet again.
The Secretary-General reiterated at the news conference that splitting the world in two – with the United States and China creating rival economic systems and rules, each with dominant currency, its own Internet, technological strategy and artificial intelligence – must be avoided at all costs.